Tehran Times - The health ministry plans to establish a registry system for organ donation shipping, the head of the ministry's management center for transplantation and special diseases said, IRNA reported on Thursday.

Mehdi Shadnoush said that the center is now working on a comprehensive map nationwide in order to transfer organs for donation via air ambulance in the fastest way.

“We have already conducted research on transportation infrastructures between provinces and it has been successfully tested,” he explained.

The golden time is an important factor in organ transplantation, he added.

The infrastructure is provided by the center as well as the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force, Law Enforcement Force of the Islamic Republic of Iran (abbreviated as NAJA), Iran’s National Emergency Medical Service Organization, he noted.

“Through registration system, we will witness more organ transplantation in the near future,” he said.

The registration system project is implemented with the support of the health ministry, the National Cartographic Center, the Iranian Space Agency, Iran Air Force, NAJA as well as medical sciences universities, he explained.

Usage of motorcycle ambulances, air ambulance, ambulance car, and even airliners are assessed in software, which can find the fastest way that is needed to ship an organ, he concluded.

The organ donation rate in Iran

In February, the transplantation and treatment of diseases department at the health ministry announced that the organ donation rate has increased by 60 times over the past 18 years.

Although Iran ranks 26 in organ donation in the world, it can claim better ranks given some plans being implemented in this regard.

If Iran moves ahead with the current trend, it will achieve 45 percent increase by the Iranian calendar year 1404 (March 2025-March 2026).

Organ donation, how and why?

Organ transplantation is one of the great advances in modern medicine, but unfortunately, the need for organ donors is much greater than the number of people who actually donate.

According to the figures revealed by the International Registry in Organ Donation and Transplantation (IRODaT) Spain leads the world in organ donation.

Figures published for 2017 reveal that 2,183 people in Spain became organ donors after they died. That’s 46.9 per million people in the population (pmp) – a standard way of measuring the rate of donation in a country, The Independent reported in July 2018.

According to the data published on IRODaT by the end of 2017 Iran’s per million population of actual deceased organ donors was 11.43. In 1996 Iran’s per million population of actual deceased organ donors was 0.1, which compared to the current pmp shows a great increase.

Some 5,000 people die of brain death annually in Iran, out of 3,000 brain deaths reported last year being qualified to be organ donors, only 926 donated their organs.